Cambodia is a place of its own. The people are sweet, the scenery is beautiful, and the traffic is on a whole new level…..this is also just month one, so I shall see how all the other countries compare.
While here in Cambodia my team and I are working with Pastor Jack and his wife Samedi (can’t forget their daughter Ya Ya). Pastor Jack runs the church Kinship Cambodia Organization, a church here in Phnom Penh. The church is home for the youth on the weekends, they come to the church for bible studies and English lessons. So on the weekends my team stays in Phnom Penh and hangs out with the youth by joining in bible studies and helping to teach them English while they teach us Khmer. They are a very spiritually driven group of people and I have already fallen in love with each of them.
Samedi is the Principal at a school run by Adore Missions, out in an unnamed province outside the city (they seriously would not tell me the name so I gave up asking). Adore Missions is a mission organization from India and the man that started the school is from Brazil. He started the school after visiting Adore Missions in India and praying to God to help him start his own school for children. Then God called him to Cambodia and here we are today. The school is the only Christian school in the area but it is also the best school. So at first parents would not send their children to the school because it is Christian. Then the village started to notice that the first graders at this school were teaching the fourth graders from the other schools, so parents started sending their kids to Adore Missions. My team and I only stay at Adore Missions during the week. While at the school my team is there to help and do everything; we clean, help teach Khmer, paint the playground, help teach hygiene, teach English, and help run an adult English bible study. I, of course, help in the preschool class where I have learned my right from left in Khmer and a few letters of the alphabet. My first week I got to help in the adult English bible study class which has been very fruitful for spirit and also an amazing way to teach people English. The best moments so far have been going into the village and visiting the teacher’s homes where we pray over their land and families, I have certainty felt God in those moments.
Currently I am sitting in Samedi’s fathers house in Phnom Penh waiting for when it is socially appropriate to go to bed because we have to leave at 4:30 a.m. to get back to the province for school tomorrow. My team and I enjoyed our day off by running around the River Side area of Cambodia where we ran into other members of our squad and had an amazing time catching up on our first week in Cambodia.
Thank you again to all of my financial supporters and prayer warriors that have gotten me this far!
